Celebrating Community
“Where is your bike Robbie?” I heard a very recognizable, somewhat Americanized, across the pond, accent. It was my good friend Gary. I told him that my bicycle got jacked about a week before, from in front of my house. Gary reached into his pocket and pulled out a key. “Here, take this one,” he said, pointing to a bike […]
When the Queen Mary 2 was docked at the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal, on May 17, Red Hook took notice. Mark’s Pizzeria put out a sign welcoming the ocean liner that temporarily reconverted the skyline. “I have noticed the QM2 a few times,” Christina Daniels at Pioneer Works wrote in an email. “It always takes me a minute to realize it’s there because it’s […]
A relic of the past has ascribed a cultural significance in Brooklyn. The Waterfront Museum Barge in Red Hook and Bargemusic moored at Fulton Ferry Landing, have emerged as vessels to entertain and resurrect Brooklyn’s waterfront. In the 19th and 20th century, Brooklyn’s waterfront was the hub of America’s commercial wealth and capitalism, as the area between Red Hook and […]
Dan Al-Mateen or “Maddan” sat with a bulging binder full of papers, newspaper clippings, and photographs spread out across the bar at Rocky Sullivan’s. As he started to talk, he flipped carefully through the pages, forming a patchwork image of the lives that his parents have led and touching on the various events and circumstances that had formed so much […]
A version of this story first appeared in the Star-Revue’s August 2017 print edition. A burnt out bulb. A busted car. A broken knee. Future biographers might note a theme laced through Vander Carter’s culinary career: things keep breaking. But Carter — a Carroll Gardens entrepreneur behind the food startup JestGreen — only sees crisis as a chance for growth. […]
I’m hungry, but I dutifully wait for lunch. Because lunch is at Defonte’s. I spend the morning writing at the Star-Revue’s warehouse office, pretending coffee is enough. The hours slouch by. When I can’t take any more typing, I bolt out the door and head down Van Brunt Street. Armed with a notebook and cash, I try my best to […]
“I’d never been happier in my life. I worked ninety-hour weeks, my telephone rang constantly, I was always hurrying off to interviews and checking the ten-dollar Rolex I’d bought on the street to make sure I wasn’t running late, rushing back to file my copy, and staying up until four a.m. to set type when the typesetter quit. And I […]
Samora Coles is many things. She is an executive director, a mother of two kids, a fiancé. But according to locals, this incredible woman is more than her titles imply. You wouldn’t know by looking at Samora that she has had a rough go of it. She gives off an air of happy-go-lucky optimism that few people, even those born […]
The return of summer weather brings children back onto soccer field and playgrounds. In the sunshine, the children at Carroll Park wait excitedly for Peter Waldman, known to many as Balloon Pete. Pete spends time in the park most afternoons, creating colorful latex animals and toys for the children that play there. In fact, he’s become “pretty darn famous with […]
At Wyckoff Street, on the block located between Court and Smith, Mingo Tull spent his early years hanging out with the other kids in the area. He recalls sitting on the steps of an old brownstone and listening to a late 60’s cover band “The Mudd”, playing out of the home’s living room. “As everyone was playing stickball, I […]